Sports Team Sponsorship

Sports Team Sponsorship

Author
Discussion

theguvernor

Original Poster:

629 posts

131 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Morning everyone,

I play for a local amateur grass roots football team.
We're a decent side having won promotion last year & currently sitting second in our respective league.
We've knocked out various higher division teams & still remain in cup competitions.

We were a new club as of the beginning of last season (i joined this season), our manager reformed the club after a hiatus of a number of years from the local amateur league, he put all of his own money into the club to get it going, affiliation fees, insurance, that sort of thing.
One of his friends relatives agreed to sponsor us, so we could get a kit, however all of our equipment was either donated/or gifted/second hand.

Understandably our kit/equipment is looking somewhat tired, with also wanting to enter a reserve team now we need to get a new kit & some new equipment, i (stupidly) put my hand up & offered to try & secure some form of sponsorship for the club, i've never really done anything like this before hence my post here, hoping someone may be able to offer me some pointers?!

I've got a quote for a budget kit with allowance for printing etc & it's coming in around £350, anything designer (Nike, Puma, Adidas etc is coming in at around £525).

We also need new equipment for training, balls, apparatus & all that sort of stuff.
I put together a budget quote using websited & estimated we'd probably need another £350 worth of gear to get us up to a basic standard!
I've approached the players, most of which, i would imagine would chip in a tenner or so each, however we're very much a self funded club from within, so don't want to put too much of a financial burden onto any of the guys! A lot are also not in highly paid jobs & have families/mortgages to contend with!

Can anyone offer some pointers on how to raise some money for the team, ideally as much as possible, we do try also do our bit for charity as well.

Has anybody had any success with crowd-funding?
One of the players is going to set up an Ebay account to try & raise money that way from selling any tat/goods nobody wants anymore to try & raise some money.
Obviously approaching local businesses is a main point, but with us not being a TV brand or really well known team i don't hold out toom much hope with that!

Eric Mc

121,958 posts

265 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Be aware of HMRC's views on sponsorship when the sponsor has a direct involvement in the entity being sponsored -

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/article/tribunal-ru...


Wing Commander

2,179 posts

232 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Where abouts in the country, and are you looking for the whole lot from one place or split the sponsorship across multiple companies/people? What do the companies get for the money?

I would imagine you might get some interest on here, hence the questions, so an idea of cost against how much exposure the advertising is likely to get would be a good idea


AyBee

10,533 posts

202 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
When I was younger and playing football, all the clubs seemed to have advertising from local companies. I imagine a simple letter offering to wear shirts with their company name/logo on as well as including their name in a write-up in the local paper(?), plus anything else you could do for them to get them publicity would probably be a good starting point. Local sports shops may be keen and may possibly also be able to get you deals on the equipment you need.

vcm

72 posts

142 months

Saturday 20th December 2014
quotequote all
hi, I agree that you should contact local businesses. (we still don't know where you are?)
don't assume that they will all be expecting a return on sponsorship, some will spend
because it's local/semi-personal/because they can/because you're making an effort, and many other reasons. you just
need to get used to the 'we've spent our budget this year'.
also don't assume it needs to be the bigger outfits that you need to approach.at
the level of money that you are suggesting, many smaller companies will be in a
position to get involved. the hardest part is asking for the sponsorship. the easiest bit
is giving the money. you keep doing the hard bit, and the rest will happen.

best of luck.

hajaba123

1,304 posts

175 months

Saturday 20th December 2014
quotequote all
Local businesses, employers of the team

Hammer67

5,728 posts

184 months

Saturday 20th December 2014
quotequote all
Obvious one is the pub where you drink after games. Over a season the landlord will recoup all/some of his investment. If it has a restaurant then always hold any club meals there as well.

Works well for my village cricket team.